Chapter 1136 1131 [Can agriculture and animal husbandry be developed overseas?]
In Changsheng Garden, several agricultural officials came to report.
The leader was called Jiao Derun, who was Zhu Guoxiang's second disciple. After the meeting, he asked his subordinates to open an agricultural map of Jiangnan.
Jiao Derun said: "In the Tang Dynasty, rice cultivation was the main activity in Jiangnan, supplemented by mulberry, tea and other crops. The rice field fallow method was prevalent at that time. Until the early Song Dynasty, some rice fields in Jiangnan were still fallow."
"But in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, most of the mature fields in Jiangnan were planted with rice, which had been harvested once a year and were no longer left fallow for fertilizer. Also in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the area under multiple planting of rice and wheat in Jiangnan increased."
"This situation changed after the introduction of Champa rice in the former Song Dynasty. In the south of the Yangtze River, there were two crops of rice a year, or two crops of rice and rape, and the area for double planting of rice and wheat gradually decreased."
"Cotton spread to Jiangnan, and the situation changed again..."
Jiao Derun pointed at the map with a bamboo stick: "From Jiangyin along the river bank and coast to the north of Hangzhou Bay. The soil in these prefectures and counties has high sand content and high salinity, so it is not suitable for growing rice, but it is suitable for growing rice."
Cotton. Although rice and cotton are also rotated here, cotton is mainly grown, with seven cotton and three rice. This can be called a cotton area."
"Yanguan County on the north side of Hangzhou Bay and this area to the northwest of Hangzhou belong to the agricultural transition zone. You can grow anything. It's not clear, so it can be called a transition zone."
"From the south of Taihu Lake to the north of Hangzhou, this area is low-lying and fertile. In fact, more rice is planted. In the slightly barren land, mulberry trees are mixed with other crops. Three mulberries and seven rice. This can be called a sericulture area."
"There are also hills in northwest Zhejiang, south of Jinling Prefecture, and west of Taihu Lake. Most of them are planted with mulberry trees. They can also be called sericulture areas."
"The area north of Taihu Lake, between Danyang, Jiangyin, and Wuxi, is basically all planted with rice. This can be called a rice area."
"The plain east of Taihu Lake also mainly grows rice, mixed with cotton and mulberry, and has a large number of textile factories. It can be called a rice weaving area."
"There are also some places that can be called Chazhu District."
After a few simple explanations on the map, Zhu Guoxiang understood it immediately, much more clearly than those civil officials who talked about it for a long time.
Zhu Guoxiang asked: "Is this formed naturally by farmers, or is it guided by you agricultural officials?"
Jiao Derun said: "It's a combination of both. In the early stage, farmers were the main ones, and in the later period, agricultural officials were the main ones. But the real summary is only recent. This agricultural map of Jiangnan is a joint effort between agricultural officials from Zhejiang Province and Jinling Prefecture.
draw."
"You did a great job." Zhu Guoxiang nodded and smiled.
Jiao Derun said: "In order to make more money, farmers often don't listen to us and rush to plant cotton. Even now, the division of this agricultural map is not absolute. Especially in rice areas, there are still many farmers with three cotton crops.
Planting in one rice rotation is okay, but it is too much of a waste of fertile land."
Zhu Guoxiang asked: "Does the government need to take action?"
"It is generally not necessary," Jiao Derun said, "but the government can persuade the farmers in those places that even if they insist on growing cotton, it is better to grow two cotton and one rice instead of three cotton and one rice."
“We have done experiments, including the cost of fertilizers such as soybean meal, and then deducting the yield reduction caused by different planting methods, and planting two cotton and one rice in a pure rice area. The overall income of farmers is higher than that of three cotton and one rice, one cotton and one rice, and single rice.
It’s higher to grow rice.”
"In addition, in some areas, if rice and rape are rotated, the income will be higher than two cotton and one rice."
"All of the above are based on the current rice, cotton, and oil prices. If any of the prices fluctuates too much, the specific combination of planting that is most beneficial will change."
Zhu Guoxiang was even more satisfied after hearing this, nodded and smiled in approval.
Jiao Derun said: "In each region, we will carve inscriptions in the countryside, describing different planting methods, and listing the approximate harvests of the upper, middle and lower fields. After seeing the content of the inscriptions, farmers can choose how to plant."
Zhu Guoxiang clapped his hands and praised: "You have done an excellent job and should be published in the "Da Ming Yue News" for commendation."
Hearing these words, all the farmers' advisors present laughed happily.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, these farmers' persuading officers were all doing practical things. They would visit the countryside every now and then, and they usually stayed in their own experimental fields.
Take the people in Jiangnan as an example. At first they didn’t take persuading agricultural officials seriously.
I have been a squire and farmer for generations. How can I still be wrong in the farming methods passed down from my ancestors? Do I still need you officials to teach me how to farm?
But year after year, the people became more and more convinced of the agricultural officials.
Not only convinced, but respected.
When other officials went to the countryside, the people were on guard and extremely vigilant. When they persuaded agricultural officials to go to the countryside, the squires and farmers rushed to receive them and took the initiative to bring out all the delicious food.
Some squire families celebrated their birthdays, and even sent people to have banquets to entertain agricultural officials.
If any mutated varieties appear in the fields, ordinary people will also remember the instructions from the agricultural officers, and while taking good care of them, they will quickly report them to the agricultural officers.
…
Zhu Guoxiang stayed in Changsheng Garden to eat with these agricultural officials, and before leaving, they were each rewarded with thirty silver coins.
The next day, Wang Chongdu of the treasure hunting trio came to see him again.
"Are you funded by the emperor?" Zhu Guoxiang asked.
Wang Chongdu said: "The initial ships, manpower and funds were all given by His Majesty. We established a trading company, with the royal family occupying 70%. Later, when Australia was discovered, His Majesty also rewarded 10% of the shares. Not only did the three of us have shares, but the trading company
There are more than a dozen people in there who have also got it. His Majesty said that when Australia’s five-year period expires, we will give us another 5%. By then, the royal family will hold 55% of the shares, and the senior employees of the trading company will hold 45%.”
In fact, it doesn't matter how many shares you hold at this stage. The income and expenditure situation is completely confusing.
Afraid of dampening the enthusiasm of the sea exploration team, Ju Ming didn't even send supervisors there. Even if those guys stuffed money into their personal pockets, Ju Ming would just pretend it never happened. After all, exploring unknown waters is extremely dangerous.
Historically, this was almost the same situation for Portuguese and Spanish explorers. They were funded by the royal family and went on long voyages. Although the amount of profits allocated to the royal family was stipulated, it was impossible to verify it in practice.
After the explorers completely opened up the situation, the Portuguese and Spanish royal families sent additional people to pick peaches.
The Dutch East India Company was in an even worse state. Even in its heyday, it was losing money every year. Major shareholders and expatriate executives were making money crazily and raising their stock prices by constantly attracting investors. As a result, small and medium-sized investors and retail investors made money by speculating in stocks.
.
In the end, it collapsed. The major shareholders, successive executives, and investors who had already withdrawn made a lot of money, while the remaining investors who had no time to withdraw lost all their money.
Zhu Guoxiang asked: "Are you going back to Hangzhou to do business?"
Wang Chongdu said: "Reporting to the emperor, doing business is just incidental. The news of Australia's rich wealth has already spread throughout Zhejiang. There are many people living in poverty in and around Hangzhou. In the past, they were reluctant to go to sea, but now they are actively signing up."
There are actually not many dual-career couples like Xu San and his wife in Hangzhou.
Men mainly make money, while women do odd jobs to earn money for the family, such as doing needlework, working as maids, etc.
At the end of the year, the family can only save two or three dollars.
If you encounter a serious illness, you will immediately return to poverty and find it difficult to survive. Even if you recover from the illness, you will have to work harder and pay off your debts as soon as possible.
Every year, people become beggars, and welfare institutions such as almshouses simply cannot take in all the beggars.
Since the imperial court encouraged immigration, local officials, including those in Hangzhou, liked to throw beggars to the immigration yamen and quickly send them to border areas without seeing them.
Wang Chongdu is eyeing these urban poor!
Zhu Guoxiang asked: "How many people are there in Australia?"
Wang Chongdu replied: "There are a few who died of illness. There are also many who are lucky enough to have found enough gold and returned to their hometowns. After deducting these, there are still more than 16,000 gold diggers in Australia."
"So many?" Zhu Guoxiang was extremely shocked.
Wang Chongdu said: "There is too much gold there. If a person returns home with gold, he can attract ten or hundreds to go to sea. Those who went there were all rough men, and the common people transported two batches of indigenous women from Nanyang. Those
There are also more than 3,000 indigenous women, most of whom are married to gold diggers."
The brothel business is not easy to do in Australia.
Although there are many gold diggers, they are so tired that they can't straighten their backs every day, so how can they think of finding prostitutes for entertainment?
However, there are many people who are willing to spend money to buy Aboriginal women as wives. Most of them are singles who have no money to get married in their hometown. They get married in Australia not entirely to satisfy their physical needs, but more to satisfy their spiritual needs.
First, those bachelors are crazy about getting married. They have made some money by gold mining in Australia and can’t wait to go back to their hometown to get married.
Second, after a tiring day of gold mining, there was a wife cooking and waiting in the shack. Someone washed the dirty clothes, and mended the torn clothes. That small life was the envy of countless gold diggers.
Zhu Guoxiang asked: "Does Australia have enough food?"
Wang Chongdu said: "Some people have stopped digging for gold and started buying land to grow food. But most of the food is still shipped from Java Island."
Zhu Guoxiang asked again: "Are they willing to give up money for food?"
"Gold mining is too tiring after all," Wang Chongdu said. "We captured many Australian indigenous people to farm the land, but those indigenous people were very stupid and couldn't teach them no matter how hard we taught them. So we thought of other ways to let the indigenous people do it.
The most painful and tiring work of land reclamation is to cut down trees, burn weeds, roughly remove tree roots, stones and other objects, and then dig a canal to divert water. After doing this, there will be gold diggers willing to buy land and cultivate it."
Zhu Guoxiang nodded: "That's it."
It is difficult for the natives to clear up wasteland perfectly, but most of the hard work has been done.
When the gold diggers bought the land, they only needed to further remove the stones and tree roots that the natives had not finished picking up, and then they could carry out initial cultivation on that land. There were even simple ditches, and beans were planted in the first two or three years.
It can be cultivated slowly over a few years.
Wang Chongdu said: "We also transported some cattle over there, and more people were willing to buy fields and cattle. There was also a crew member who had been to the north and suggested transporting more horses, donkeys, and sheep. Australia has a large grassland, which can be
Grazing there.”
Zhu Guoxiang said: "Farming and grazing are excellent. The gold will eventually be mined, but farming and grazing can be passed down to future generations."
Wang Chongdu said: "Besides us, there are several trading companies who are also bringing people to Australia. However, the Jinshan area is occupied by us, and they can only occupy other places. It's not enough to make a small fuss. That's it.
The price of rose gemstones has been driven down by those guys, and it can no longer be sold at the original sky-high price."
With that said, Wang Chongdu took out a lot of opal and dedicated it to Zhu Guoxiang and his concubines.
Although the price of this thing has dropped again and again, it is still extremely valuable, but it cannot be sold at a sky-high price.
Zhu Guoxiang asked: "How many people do you think will be willing to stay after the gold is mined there?"
Wang Chongdu shook his head: "I can't tell. It is estimated that 70% to 80% of gold diggers want to go home, but those who make a lot of money dare not go back. If more land is reclaimed over there and grazing can make money, there may be more left.
people."
"I'll send you a few agricultural officers to help develop agriculture and animal husbandry overseas," Zhu Guoxiang said in a joking tone, "The agricultural officers are precious, so you should give them more money."
